Only Kai
by r-nica
Summary: -ONE-SHOT- Kai watches Hiromi sitting in the swing frozen with emotional pain. To comfort yet risk her getting hurt again or to keep his distance for the greater good: what MUST he choose? He isn't counting to learn one thing in the end though...


**DISCLAIMER:** Owning Kai belongs to my dreams while owning the money earned by the series (and the manga) belongs to my wish list.

**(Why oh WHY do I have a knack for accidentally deleting my fics instead of managing the chapter? I think I need more sleep after this...) **

**Heya, people! I'M BAAAACK! My first fic post of the year—since I haven't posted anything since Christmas. --dies--For those who are waiting for **_Dinner With Me_**, I have good news for you. The next chapter only needs to be edited before I post it. I hope the next scenes to come will make up for the long wait.**

**Kai: Supposedly it's her first multichaptered fic to be completed. Yehey.**

**Well, that's its last chapter brimming with KxHness.**

**Kai: Do you enjoy punishing me or what?**

**Hell yeah—I mean, no, not at all! ANYWAY, for those who haven't read it, please check it out; it would be much appreciated if you read and review it.**

**I should tell you now… The way I write my fics (tense switching, details, etc) in first POV is different from those in third POV. Below is written in Kai's POV, with some implications of what really happened. A oneshot work, of course.**

**Hope you enjoy!

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ONLY KAI

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The moment I entered the Kinomiya dojo training hall, I instantly knew something wasn't right from the silence weighed down by tension. My teammates who saw me looked uncomfortable, like something big happened there before. And Kinomiya and Hiromi… They were gone. 

That is just a few hours ago.

Kyouju filled me in that the only couple in our group was no more but also told me that it would be best if I didn't go near any of them. Rei also tried to say the same thing but I tuned him out and ignored him by the time he got to the usual giving some space crap. The neko-jin didn't know the first thing about how I really feel.

That is just a few hours ago too.

Now...

It must have been hard for her.

I have seen devastated people in the past. They may seem like they lock themselves inside their rooms but in reality it's the heavy dominating feeling that confines them in its unseen prison, just making them want to separate themselves from the rest of the living world through that room with drained strength to fight it off.

Hurt, confusion. Pain, suffering. Anguish.

They know nobody would understand them. Could understand them.

They just want to be left alone.

That's probably how she wants it right now.

If I were in her place, that would be how I'd want it to be too. Even if I weren't, like now, I know searching for her isn't the best move.

But of all people who know the value of being alone, I'm the one who's just a figure several meters away from her now.

The playground in the park has lost its noisy kids. The more I watch the sole person in the swing, the more deafening the growing heavy silence becomes. It's like something else—like observing a lost soul among the graves of a dull cemetery.

I shouldn't be here.

I should just leave her alone now. This is the time to be by herself. To reflect. To cry. To break the dam of all overwhelming feelings she's holding inside.

But I'm scared of what may happen to her if she drowns in her own sorrow and pain, as much as I never imagined and admitted to myself feeling this way before.

Why isn't she even moving? I wait for her to do what I believe any normal girl would do in her situation. I watch for the endless tears, the wild thrashing about, the contortions of pain in the face. But none of those come.

She's even worse than me, the beyblader known as the lone wolf of the team. At least I grew up being used to contain whatever I felt without any aftermaths for me. But Hiromi—she's one easy to read. Being a milder version of Takao, her boyfriend—now her former one—she often voices out her emotions may it be happiness, anger, sadness, any of them. She isn't used to bottling her feelings all to herself, and if it isn't easy for her to keep on doing it, she won't last long for it will destroy her.

It must be happening already right now.

It seems as if whatever the breakup is all about has frozen her in her place. How powerful is that sore subject to paralyze and crush her? If only someone will help her…

But who can? Who will?

I know Kinomiya is still too screwed up to even consider making things better for her.

I want someone else to approach her. I want Rei to stand before her, let his mere presence soothe her. I want Max to sit down on the swing beside her, place a placating hand on her stiff shoulder. I want Kyouju to speak words of comfort, to offer his small frame for her to spill her tears on.

And I want to watch all these occur from my safe spot on this flat path where the sea of grass is just below my feet.

Damn it.

How much of myself can I deceive? How much do I want to?

**I want that someone to be me.**

Only I can't. Shouldn't. I can't hurt her.

Right now she's an open wound, exposed to the harshness of love, bleeding with her own blood of pain. Will fall for any net of comfort laid around her. I'm one of those who want to catch her in my net. But I know if I do, she'll respond only out of confusion that will mislead her direction of her affections to. I have been a witness to such occurrence, when Salima happened to be there when Rei and Mao broke up. After a long train of painful events, he finally gained the strength to express to me how one wrong moment can screw up so many things and in the end leave all three of them hurt in different ways.

Can I allow the same painful thing to happen to Hiromi?

I told you I can't hurt her.

But will it hurt if I go near her?

_It may. Maybe it will. _

Against my better judgment, I silently trudge down the stairs until I reach the swing. Hiromi must have been still unable to see me even when I settle at the empty swing next to hers. Hands on chains, shoulders slumped, her head is bent down, chocolate locks hiding her frozen face. I've never seen her like this before.

And I've never felt so helpless and powerless in my entire life.

I never was the type to wrap a comforting arm around someone's shoulders, even for a friend. I never was the one to capture someone's falling soul into my arms, to let my shirt get soaked with tears that aren't mine. To close my eyes, whisper soft words like, "Everything will be all right, don't worry."

The only thing I can do is sit there, stare ahead of me. Offer my broad shoulder in silence, hoping to get the message across. Only that. The only things I can say are anything to whip back that person into realization, only direct words to encourage that beyblader to stand up again.

Only that.

Because this is not beyblading. Because here, I am not _the_ Kai. I am Kai. I am not Max, I am not Kyouju, not even am I Rei.

Here, I am _only_ Kai.

If Hiromi feels my presence, she makes no point of showing it. I'm not the least bit surprised, seeing her frame paralyzed with hurt that she barely even looks up. How much of this can she take? How much of this can _I_ take? I want her pain to stop now.

For about ten minutes, I stay in my seat, my gray orbs seeming to bore nonexistent holes right through the still air before me. My foot will gently push a little against the ground to move the swing but I don't shoot any form of attention at her direction, somehow knowing she hardly knows I'm even there.

Finally, I know I failed. Getting up, I'm about to go past her, inches within her reach.

She grips the swing tightly.

I stop. Turn to her. Still silent. Watch her.

Her tight hold on the chains grows even more. If she does it any further, the metal links are sure to break.

I watch her.

Her skirt is pelted by falling moisture.

The grip loosens slowly.

I'm silent.

Pale hands, like they're about to faint, blindly reaches out in search for something else to grasp and finds my waist. I don't know if I'm the one who came nearer to her or she to me, for the next thing I know her scalp is resting on my flat stomach.

Silent tears.

I find them on my shoes.

I make no move while she remains in an internal struggle to restrain herself.

It does her no good.

I want to block the pain.

Finally she loses control, slowly rising from her seat, drifting her moist eyes until they find my chest and buries her face there. Muffles her loud sobs. Drenches my shirt with sorrow and pain. Grabs handfuls of my dark shirt until her fingernails nearly make holes on it.

Despite knowing myself, I freeze the moment we make contact.

But her body is trembling, like a shivering puppy all wet and cold from a cruel storm.

Abandoned.

What am I supposed to do? I start raising my hand to her shoulder, then hesitate. Comforting her will lead to a wrong turn. Just standing there without action will make me feel useless. Pushing her off me will kill her even more.

Stillness.

Then...

My right hand proceeds to her right shoulder.

Her body stiffens at the contact. A few moments of stillness and it collapses into violent shaking, more audible cries.

Cry. Don't cry, I feel like saying. Cry, to release the tears of emotions contained for too long. Don't cry, to stop reflecting how these emotions are damaging you. You and that vast space inside that place you often call a heart.

My other hand reaches her free shoulder, my arm completing the human _X_ at her back. It's so awkward, holding a girl you shouldn't touch, trying to make her feel better without knowing whether or not the effort will earn success. Still, I hold on.

Finally Hiromi looks up from my wet chest, stares at my neck. My eyes catch hers by accident and watch a display of mixed emotions conflicting with each other. It's so fast, none of the emotions stay put long enough for me to read them.

But I do know that our faces are just inches apart. A little more leaning and the gap will surely be closed. So I do. Hiromi seems to notice it too as her breath suddenly turns ragged, eyes widening before shutting so tight, just in time as I catch within the depths of auburn a fleck of confusion and…

My mind blocks out whatever possibilities about the last word are. My eyes close, my lips about to brush hers. She's giving in, so slowly…

Suddenly I feel the change in her demeanor, startling me. My eyes open, feeling an invisible barrier surround Hiromi while she tries to escape from my hug. My arms loosen their hold on her body.

"Thank you, Kai." Her tone sounds so strained yet so formal. So she knows. Knows that she was on the rebound.

I remain silent. I have already seen this happen to Mao, Rei and Salima. I knew this would happen. If I didn't, I would ask her for what. But somehow, she discerns the question already.

"For even trying." Trying to make her feel better. _Trying._ That common word has a great impact on me. "But you shouldn't have. I wish you didn't."

Forget the rebound. With a voice so heavy with impersonality, she sounds so foreign. So distant. Like she was talking to someone she barely knew, a stranger.

Then she moves away from me, eyes finally opened.

"I don't want to hate you any further."

There I see the suppressed dark emotion, the missing word my mind had blocked earlier. The restrained clench of her teeth. My secret glances, my gazes at her from a distance, my true emotions behind my mask of indifference, the true voice underneath my cool tones… She noticed from the start.

She knew all along.

But she wasn't the only one.

And at that moment I instantly know Rei and Kyouju are right.

Without another word, she turns around and runs away.

Numb. I'm left there, numbed. How I wish my guilt to be the same. But when I imagine the furious look Kinomiya would give me, I know it won't happen. It's even worse to imagine Hiromi defending me before without my knowledge.

But the worst thing to imagine is accepting myself for who I am.

I am the cause of Hiromi's pain.

**I am only Kai.**

_:The End:

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**Please review. Feedback would be highly appreciated (as long as you won't kill me). Thanks! Flames will be used for our barbeque. :)**


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